Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/76

 There is a vigorous conflict of opinion to-day as to nationalism and individualism, with a strong tendency, especially in education, toward individualism. In the opinion of many there exists a harmful slavery of the high and preparatory schools to the erratic and varied demands of different colleges, and also a slavery to ignorance and caprice in some schools themselves, which would be removed by a general agreement to uniformity. Men are not enslaved, but are emancipated, by organization, and freedom of the individual is found in the good order of society and government. In a facetious criticism of the committee's report, arguing for extreme individualism in choice of studies, appears the following query: "Please tell us if you and your colleagues on the conference considered any methods for the encouragement of cranks?" No; for the encouragement neither of cranks, nor of crankiness, but for the encouragement of the best kind of rational education. While there are a few wise, independent investigators who need no enforced uniformity, and will not be bound by the recommendations of others, many of the schools are largely imitators, or, worse, are working independently with limited insight, and these schools would be vastly improved by adopting courses and methods growing from a consensus of the best opinions of the country. The lowest would thereby tend to rise to the highest, and from that plane a new advance could be made. Meantime the original thinkers would be free to push forward toward higher results, to be generally adopted later. Through contact of various ideas some principles are settled, and the world is free to move on toward fresh discovery.

The selection of studies is to be determined largely